Routine
by Pure Chocolatte
Summary: Sandsib fic. A peek into a sacred time of the day for Gaara, Kankuro and Temari. Spoilers up till the Rescue Gaara arc.


Title: Routine

A/N: Yosh, I'm here with a new fic, a Sandsib fic! I've also decided to post more of my stories here and just finish up my series on my Quizilla account. This is similar to Endeavor on Quizilla, and it is a moment caught during a sacred time of the day for Temari, Kankuro and Gaara. Spoilers for Rescue Gaara arc. No own, bow down to the almighty Kishimoto. Reviews would be welcomed. Thx.

**Routine**

Blond hair and Kabuki paint. That was their routine.

Carefully, tentatively, he takes out the bind from her hair to allow them to flow down her back in a long silky wave. One by one, he pulls the others out with tender movements, so as not to hurt her scalp.

When all four binds are undone, and her hair is no longer restricted in its tight ponytails, he picks up the brush next to him and starts running it through her hair. He does it slowly, with gentle strokes, as if savouring each time the bristles teeth through her tresses. They look wiry, but they are actually very soft. Soft enough for one to wonder, where does a kunoichi like her have time to take care of her hair so well? Especially, a kunoichi that never had any fancy for such trivial things as hair care?

Kankuro knows that her hair is that way because her mother's genes live strong in her as his father's in him. Thankfully, character-wise, they take after neither. They are made of stronger stuff, he's seen both of them struggle just that much. Living in constant fear that your life is on a precipice, that you live so close to a demon that could crush you to oblivion and not have a shred of remorse hones your survival skills till they are sharp as a senbon needle. But he also knows that his brother is made out of stronger stuff, just like them. That is why he no longer tries to kill them.

Their mother, Karura her name was, had hair just as wonderful, he thinks as he runs the brush along her blond locks and hears her contented sigh. And that is all he remembers of her. The softness of her hair as it caressed his cheek when she hugged him. All he remembers. Not her voice, not her face, not her smell, just the feel of her hair on his skin. Only the photograph of her permits her image to float back up into his mind, away from all the good and bad pieces and memories life created.

Temari turns her head to the side a little, so that he does not have to shift positions. The brush draws whispers from her hair as it runs through it, right down to the split ends she has gained from the vigorous training she coerces herself to do, separating them so that they are nice and untangled again.

She is nineteen already but he helps her brush her hair anyway. He looks up from the rhythmic, consistent strokes of the brush and sees the side of her face, her rigid profile in the dim light of her room. His breathing catches in his throat as he realizes, not for the first time but still it surprises him, how alike they look.

She looks like her mother, but he knows she will never curse her son nor her village like Karura did. There was a time, when he was young, so young he confused his sister for his mother, though she looked not much older than himself. Somewhere in him knew that she wasn't but he figured that since they looked so alike, they should be alike too. She was the first person he ran to when he got a cut on his finger for toying with a kunai in his first ever puppet. Not his father, not Yashamaru, but his sister.

And when she held out her arms and took him into a hug, and he could not feel the hair on his cheek because she always tied them in ponytails even when she was only six, he had pushed her away and ran from her. She had stood there, hurt and confused, not knowing why he had ran away like that. He always seemed to forget afterwards and hug her again but would push her away after that. She was always hurt by this but she never turned away. And when he finally realized that she was not his mother but still loves him anyway, he was already too old for hugs.

The only time he let her hug him tight without running away was when he witness Gaara killing another caretaker that had substituted Yashamaru temporarily while he was on a mission. He had fled to her room that night and she had held him close and rocked him to sleep, whispered comforting things to him that meant nothing, when she was just as scared herself.

He brushes her hair one more time and listens as the last whisper dies. He puts the brush down and presses his face into her hair, just to feel it again. She does nothing to stop him, but allows him the infinitesimal moment of comfort in his life, which has not been easy on him.

She admits that their pain and suffering is nothing like their brother's, but she senses that Kankuro needs this, and lets him stay there for a while anyway. When he is done pulling himself together, he takes her hair binds and slowly divided her lower hair into half, tying the lower left back into its original ponytail.

She automatically turns her head to the right, to let him finish the other one. He smiles and tugs on her hair playfully, earning a soft hit on his hand. Her back is still straight, she never slouched like him.

He does not know why Temari started allowing him to touch her hair, just that one late night, he saw her struggling to tie her hair with bandaged fingers. She always tied her hair that way, even when she slept, and only let it down when she bath. Once it was dry though, it was back up.

She was trying to do just that and he went over to help her. Her clumsy fingers fell to her side when she saw what his intention was. He shook his head and muttered incoherently at her injuries, probably training too long with their sensei again. She had only become a genin a month ago and here she was, training with her fan till the metal cut into her fingers. He took the bindings from her.

When he saw how messy her hair was, he sighed and took off the only crooked ponytail she had managed to tie, brushing her hair till it was back to its original softness. Then only did he tie it up into her usual four ponytails. It became their routine, he brushed her hair every night and tied them back up before they slept.

He has finished tying them up. She gets up and scrutinizes them in the mirror. She turns to him and nods her approval. He smirks because she has never disapproved before, it is always a nod. She does not particularly care if they look nice, he thinks she only does it to make him feel better.

Now, they have another routine to observe before going to bed.

She takes a warm, wet cloth from the sink in her bathroom and sits down next to her brother. She holds his face gently in her hand and her other rubs the cloth against his face. Over the eyelids, down the cheeks, across the lips. She wipes the purple Kabuki paint of his face and he relaxes his aching muscles and lets her slide the warm cloth over his face.

He is so proud of his sister, he really is. Ever since their mother's death, it had been assumed she was to take over her place as the woman of the house. Even Yashamaru did not quite fit the picture as she did. When he died, she was even more under pressure because their father wouldn't care if anything happened to them. He only cared about ridding himself and Suna of the beast which was his brother.

But Temari did not break down like most girls would. She knew how harsh life could be to anyone, whether they deserved it or not was another matter, and this was something a girl that young should never have to see till she was prepared. But life does not handle its dealings so fairly and she had been thrust into that world much earlier than anyone would have expected. So had he. And she knew this too.

That was why she never gave up trying to take care of him, no matter how many times he pushed her away. Because she knew that he needed her there. He needed the security of knowing that there was still some one there looking out for him even when he didn't want it, because when he did, he would know that that some one would be there with her arms open to welcome him into a hug.

Even now, she stands strong for the three of them, defending them and guarding over them because it was her duty, because she loves them. He knows they love her too.

She wipes the paint from his chin so that it is now back to its normal skin colour instead of that atrocious purple. Why purple, she never understood, until he told her one night, and she remembers that night with crystal clearness because it is the night she let him brush her hair for the first time, that it had been the first jar of Kabuki paint their mother had bought for him to play with. Purple, because she liked that colour. The wall of the Kazekage's manor had been scrawled with childish paintings that day as a happy Kankuro finished the jar within mere hours of its purchase. He left just enough to smudge his whole face in it before throwing the jar into his toy box haphazardly and running out to play some more.

Many years later, he found the empty jar again when he was clearing out the old toys to throw away. Since then, he had started experimenting with the Kabuki paint, drawing all sorts of artistic designs over his face. But they always itch if left for too long, so he had to clean it off before he went to bed. Temari had offered to help him after he helped her tie her hair. Wiping paint off wasn't as hard as tying ponytails with bandaged fingers.

She passes the cloth over his left cheekbone as she reads each line, each feature, each etch on his face like an interesting book, one she will never tire of reading, no matter how many times she leafs through the pages.

He looks so much like his father. Yet, she knows that he would never do something as sinful as sealing a demon into a child and then trying to kill him because he was not able to face up the troubles he brought onto himself. Her brother would never isolate the child, remembering everything he did wrong and nothing he did right, thus creating a negative environment around him that would eventually drive the most stable of men to the brink of psychosis. It was only their fear of Gaara that made them isolate him too. She hopes he doesn't blame them for that.

The cloth is purple now. She folds it over so that the clean side is now wiping his face. It is a long routine because the paint is hard to come off. Her small hand is still holding his now-clean chin firmly in place, lest he squirms when she rubs harder on a stubborn spot. He gives an annoyed grunt. She takes no notices and keeps on scrubbing.

Kankuro is better than her father, ten thousand, million times better, she thinks vehemently. Because he is just like that. Because he has helped his brother to break apart the barrier Gaara had built up over the years. He has reached out to grasp his hand and pulled him back from the darkness he has been letting himself get consumed in. He may be crude at times, but he still helps. He has given his brother a second chance and Gaara has accepted. It has been easier since the Shukaku was extracted but nevertheless, she appreciates their efforts. She loves them both for that.

She loves them so much she feels sudden desire to reach out and hug them both, because in truth she hasn't been hugging either one of them for ages, this show of affection was replaced by the routine they are now going through. But she reigns in that desire and continues cleaning off the paint because she doesn't not want to disrupt said routine.

But Kankuro is still helping and Gaara is still accepting. They are both helping by letting him sit and watch them go through their routine and he is accepting by watching them quietly.

Gaara sits on Temari's bed and watches his siblings finish of their nightly routine. He does not watch them directly because he still feels awkward for imposing, but he watches them with the Third Eye, one of his skills he still retains even when he is no longer a jinchuuriki. He sits facing Temari's wooden closet instead, which, behind those big doors, are filled with more training clothes than normal ones, just like every other ninja.

Before, he would never dream that such a thing would ever happen. Before, his life had been like a short wax candle, one that had been lit with such a strong flame, it was fast burning away. Burning, burning. So hot, it scalded the people who came close to it. But they risked the burns and tried and tried, finally lowering the ferocious flame till it was a mere glow, mellow and warm, so that now he can enjoy his life slowly while basking in the soft glow of the candle that will definitely last longer.

The tenderness he observes is still strange to him but he is becoming better at this. He knows that they have been doing this for years now, almost ten maybe, and he is only just joining in. And all he does is watch them, observing their actions, drinking in their expressions like a parched man stranded in the desert for days. He wants to learn before he participates and it is enough for now.

He can see the closeness between his sister and brother. He can understand also, why his sister lets Kankuro brush her hair or why his brother lets Temari clean his face even when they are both in their late teens and are perfectly capable of doing it themselves. He wishes to join them soon.

They have finished and Temari goes to rinse the cloth off. Gaara's Third Eye dissolves and he thinks that the next time, hopefully there is a next time because you never know when you are a ninja, he will watch them with his own eyes. He gets up from the bed, the springs creaking. Temari comes back into the room after a while and finds Kankuro leaning on the wall, dozing off. She smiles and stretches gracefully before waking him up by tapping his shoulder softly. Kankuro snorts and blinks his eyes open sleepily. He gets up too and they are about to say goodnight to each other when they notice that young Kazekage isn't in the room already.

They look at each other questioningly, worriedly, and make to go out of the room to look for him. He hasn't missed their routine since he started coming in and watching them some months ago. Kankuro hurries to the door only to have it opened by Gaara himself before he could even reach it.

Temari and Kankuro heave a sigh of relief. Their eyes widen when the see what he has in his hands. It is a tray with three cups and a teapot on it. Gaara looks at them with an indifferent face, or so he thinks. They can see the way he grips the tray, in an almost scared and vulnerable manner, afraid they will draw back from him again. They do no such thing.

Temari is the first to recover. She smiles her thanks and takes the tray from Gaara, setting it down on her dresser. She pours the tea into the cups and hands one to Gaara, another to Kankuro and the last one for herself. They sit down, Temari on her stool, Kankuro on the floor and Gaara back on the bed. None of them say anything and the silence is not broken. They just sit back, enjoying the tea.

As he watches them drink, Gaara thinks that he has finally been accepted by them. Finally been accepted into this sacred society that is the Siblings. If they knew what he was thinking, they would have told him he was wrong. He had been accepted in a long time ago.

Thy finish their tea and Temari puts the cups back into the tray. She will bring it down next morning, she decides. She tiptoes to kiss Kankuro on the cheek as he has also already gotten up, and the height difference is prominent. She then turns and kisses Gaara on the forehead, right next to the tattoo, hands pressing softly on his shoulders to gain height. This is a new thing too. Usually, she just bids them both goodnight.

The two boys go back to their own room and Temari prepares for bed. She washes up and changes into her nightclothes, snuggling into her covers. The nights in Sunagakure no Sato are as cold as the days are hot. As she switches of the bedside light, she can't help but thinks how she likes the new routine, even better than the old one.

Blond hair, Kabuki paint and green tea. That was their new routine.


End file.
